About Us

The Václav Havel Program for Human Rights & Democracy is an essential public, academic, and ethical creation at the right time and the right place. As the struggle that concluded in 1989 with the rebirth of democracy from totalitarianism in Central Europe recedes from the attention of younger generations, the values upheld and the freedoms won more than 30 years ago must be preserved in research, publication, and implementation in all areas of public affairs and in service to the concept of an open society. Miami —today’s nexus of population, capital, and ideas— is the best place for such a center. FIU, as the only public research university in greater Miami, has both the infrastructure and the academic gravitas to make such a center flourish and become consequential.